


beyond the woods and farther

by BlackCats



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 13:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3812818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each trip they took to the city, he showed her there was nothing to be afraid of.<br/>(Mary, Seto, and the third trip of many.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	beyond the woods and farther

This was only the third time she had ever come to the city with Seto—before her home of a hundred and more years began to feel too small, yet  _after_  she started breathing in the scent of pine, and thinking of the boy who climbed the tallest in the forest. The scent of the woods still clung to them both, wild and out of place in the industrial light and urban wonder of the city, and she felt just as alien, just as feral, in comparison.

Seto had laughed at her. He did that a lot, really, but always in the best of ways. “You’ll be fine, Mary! I promise. Just stick close to me, all right?”

She complied because it was  _Seto_ , and she’d never been that great at saying no to Seto; not since the thing that played a thousand tracks of music had first been placed in her ear.

The forest was  _her_  domain, but here, Seto ruled. She allowed it, clinging to his side, marveling at the fact that boys grew old and shot up so  _quickly_ ; he was all gangly limbs now, and tanned skin, but the same youngster who had knocked the first knock she had ever known, so nothing had changed that was important.

Mary pressed closer to his side as a truck roared by, eyeing it uneasily, equal parts fascinated and perturbed.

“They can get a little noisy, I know.”

His eyes didn’t burn red as often anymore, but he still seemed to guess her thoughts regardless.

“You keep saying we’re going to see a surprise,” Mary said, peering up at him with eyes that would never lose their scarlet shine. “But what surprise  _is_ it, Seto?”

Another laugh. “Well, it’s not a surprise if I  _tell_ you, Mary!”

She puffed her cheeks out. “You have to at least give me a hint! I don’t know…it really could be anything. It’ll be more fun if I can guess?”

Really, she just wanted to think about something besides the noise of the city. She hadn’t  _quite_ grown used to it yet, and the sheer pressing presence of the people around her made her skin prickle with memories of boys and bloody clubs.

He tapped a finger against his chin, shrugging after a moment. “Hmm…all right, that’s fair enough. I’m not too good at riddles though. Uh, so basically, you could imagine it as a…”

She watched him cast his eyes around as if the words he was searching for were physical, present things.

“A coliseum!” He exclaimed suddenly, with enough force to make Mary squeak a bit in shock. Seto chuckled, rubbing the top of the white hood on her head; his eyes were apologetic for the scare, even if his grin held its usual impish energy. “Imagine it like a coliseum, just  _filled_ with people who train their whole lives to practice amazing feats!”

Mary gasped, appropriately impressed already. “A coliseum?” About four dozen different books on…on  _something_ that was either Greek or Roman flashed through her mind. “But…not the sort where everyone fights to the death, right?”

“I promise there’s no death,” Seto replied, voice warm with suppressed humor. “Well.  _Ideally_.”

“Oh…! But, there’s a coliseum here? In this city?  _Really?_ ”

“Absolutely! You ready to go check it out?”

Mary bounced on the ends of her heels, fists clenched, stars practically in her eyes. “I-I’m ready, Seto!”

For the second time in five minutes, Mary let out a squeak as Seto abruptly scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. Embarrassed and startled—this was a first amongst their many times—she clutched at her companion’s shoulders and stammered out a protest.

Seto gave her his sunniest smile. “It’ll be a little bit faster this way, okay? Just be sure to hold on tight!”

“A-Ah, okay! Okay!” Not that she really had a choice, since he was already ducking down an alleyway.

How he was able to move so quickly while carrying her, she would never know. Down they went, down and down and farther still, around upended trash cans and old crates and alley cats who meowed curiously at their passing. Once she got over the surprise, Mary found that it really wasn’t all that…that  _bad_ , and she let Seto carry her—Seto, the boy who was more of a teenager now, wiry and tall and still just as kind.

He grinned down at her and her pale skin flushed with red.

An eventual bend in the path brought them to a dead-end. Mary thought that, perhaps, Seto had taken a wrong turn,  _somewhere_ back there in the maze of lefts-rights-middles that comprised the city’s mole-tunnel alley infrastructure.

But that was not the case.

He set her down with a flourish, imparting a cheerful nod her way before scrambling up and over the fence that was comprised of links of metal in a sturdy chain. Mary stared, examining the makeup of it…Seto’s upper-arm strength had always been better than hers.

“We’re nearly there! Come on, I’ve got you.”

Mary’s eyes were the size of dinner plates as Seto leaned precariously over the fence’s side, balancing on the edge like a cat—she thought his foot was likely hooked around a nearby building’s ornamental swirl, but she wasn’t sure.

“Seto! Y-You’re going to fall!”

“I’ll be fine, Mary! Don’t worry about it.”

And again, there it was. His calming voice of reason against all her anxieties, her fears.

She looped her fingers around the fence and scrambled up it halfway before allowing him to pull her up and over, the soles of her shoes pressed uneasily against the thin metal. He did it so _simply_ ; she felt a little silly for fretting all the time.

“It’s…harder to climb than vines,” she giggled, her tone apologetic, and Seto nodded.

“But there’s a trick to it. I learned it when I was younger, just remind me to show you on the way back.” He squeezed her shoulder before jumping down the other side, opening his arms up to catch her. “We’ve still got to get to your surprise, right?”

“R-Right!”

She could be brave. She could be brave, she knew it.

So Mary gathered up her dress and her hair and made sure nothing was sticking to the unyielding metal of the fence before she hopped over, straight into his embrace. Seto echoed her giggle with some laughter of his own, twirling them once before setting her down, taking her hand in his.

“You all right, Mary?”

A vigorous nod. “Mmhmm!”

“Then let’s go!”

He took off running, and Mary wondered if he was aware of how much  _longer_ his strides had become, because she thought and knew and pondered every single one of his changes since he knocked the first time and he knocked the hundredth time, and they were all fascinating.

( _Humans_ were fascinating, though she didn’t remember very many.)

It was a straight shot, this time, and Mary tilted her head as she heard an unfamiliar sound bubbling just beneath the patter of their steps. The closer they grew to their mysterious destination, the more defined the sound became, and she realized—

It was a crowd. A crowd of people, so many at once that their clamoring had become incomprehensible.

“Seto?” Mary murmured. She hadn’t frequented the city enough to feel comfortable around huge, excited crowds just yet.

“It’s not what you think,” he assured her, squeezing her hand. “Trust me, and I’ll show you.”

Naturally, she did, so Mary returned the pressure and continued to jog.

They reached another dead-end, but this one’s wall was circumvented even easier than the last. A tree was growing close to the white stone, its long branches expanding up and over. Mary felt pretty proud of herself, since she didn’t even need Seto’s help hauling herself up it and creeping along the branch onto the other side. They ended up stepping onto a building’s roof, actually, rather than the wall itself.

Their hands joined again. Seto led her carefully along for a short distance, adjusting both of their hoods  _just in case_ , his face brightening into a beaming smile as he located…whatever it was that he was searching for.

He brought a finger to his lips—she recognized it as a sign for quiet, since it was something they often used when near skittish animals, as well.

“Here we are, Mary!” Seto said in an excited whisper, kneeling down and bringing her up beside him.

Mary peeked over the back of the wooden sign in front of them, and—

She gasped.

There was a coliseum all right, described exactly as her books had said.

…Or, well, close enough.

She liked this one better.

Three sides of a massive pool of water were surrounded by rows and rows of rising seats, each one higher than the last, painted with displays of waves and blue skies and white clouds. Men and women in professional looking clothing were tossing fish from a bucket into the water, causing a chorus of happy sounds to emit from the seals currently performing for the audience.

Mary would have been worried for the beasts, if they weren’t so very clearly healthy and energetic. She looked around for a displeased emperor that would send those that failed to entertain to their deaths, but there was no one around to judge the seals, save for the audience itself.

“And they’re just the warm-up act,” Seto told her.

“Seto! Where are we?” She couldn’t take her eyes off of the performance, leaning a cheek against his shoulder. They were still speaking in whispers, though it was unlikely anyone could hear them over the noise.

It was just as unlikely that anyone could  _see_ them—the angles of the buildings and seats practically made them invisible.

“This is a water park. Basically, people come here to see the marine animals and to hang out at the water slides over there—do you see those big, plastic things in the distance? With the waterfall?”

“You can _go_ on that?! You just slide down it?”

“Y-Yeah,” Seto said, a hint of wryness entering his tone. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not too big on swimming, but I don’t mind the show! I used to sneak in to take a look…I’m surprised this old route still works.”

Mary finally looked over at him, a slow, shy smile spreading across her face. “Thank you for showing me. You were right…” She twisted the corner of her dress thoughtfully. “The city really is interesting…”

Everything that he’d shown her of the place so far had been nothing short of magical. It really did wonders for her anxiety regarding the city she’d once considered to be a hornet’s nest of trouble.

“Hey, I’m  _happy_ to! I always have lots of fun with you, Mary.” He gripped her hand and nodded, a firm resolution, knitting their fingers together. “This means my turn is up! I hope you’ve got a good book picked out for us to read back in the forest.”

Oops. She’d completely forgotten that she still needed to pick a tome from amongst the _hundreds_  that she thought were worth sharing. Truthfully? 

She wanted to read them _all_  with him.

“H-Hehe…I’ll…have it soon?”

Seto laughed again. “It’s not like there’s any—Oh, Mary! Look at that!”

Mary turned just in time to see the rising shadow of an orca soar over them. The graceful beast twisted over backwards before crashing down in an explosion of salty spray that made the crowd closest to the water shriek with delight. She clapped her hands together, excitement bright and brimming in her eyes.

“Seto! Did you see? Did you  _see_ that?!”

He looked incredulous. “Of course I saw it! I’m the one who pointed it out to you!”

Mary pouted briefly but his humor was infectious, so a second or two later, and she was smiling just as hard. Her attention went back to the performance, since the seals had scurried off, allowing the killer whale to circle the tank at the urging of its cheerful trainer. “This is so amazing…!”

“I’ll try to bring you here legitimately next time,” Seto said ruefully, his eyes drifting skyward. “Maybe I can do some part-time work…”

“I’ll…help with that?” Mary offered, uncertain but sincere. She beamed at him hopefully.

He gave her one of his softer smiles, touching their foreheads together briefly—she closed her eyes—before nodding back at the show. “One step at a time, Mary. Let’s just enjoy this for now.”

Mary went back to leaning against his shoulder, deciding to do just that.

**Author's Note:**

> I love the fact that Tooth-Rotting Fluff was already a pre-defined tag.


End file.
